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Episode 1309: Manager Overboard
Date December 14, 2018 Summary Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about why there have been so many Noah Syndergaard trade rumors, then answer listener emails about whether Giancarlo Stanton would be better if he raised his launch angle, how and when a manager who kept intentionally walking hitters would be stopped, how and whether to debate saber skeptics (about Harold Baines, or anything else), Bryce Harper pulling a LeBron, how to identify pitches, and the definitions of “gas” and “inning,” plus a Stat Blast about J.T. Realmuto and the biggest career home/road splits. Topics * Giancarlo Stanton launch angle * Coaches fired mid game * “Sabr-Skeptics” and how to deal with them * Bad players at home * Harper super team, and super bad team fit * Value of having a Trout Harper team up * Easy way to identify pitchers on tv * Can offspeed be “straight gas”? * What's an inning? Intro * T. Rex, "Life’s a Gas" Outro * Saturday Looks Good to Me, "Keep Walking" Banter * Things that didn't happen during the Winter Meetings * Noah Syndergaard Email Questions'' * Eugene: Is Giancarlo Stanton a player you think might benefit from a swing change to increase his average launch angle? He seems to get overlooked as a candidate for making such a change since he's a prolific power hitter already, but he had a relatively low average launch angle in 2018 at 11.6 degrees. He generates very high exit velocities of course, but his flat swing also contributes to a 45% groundball rate. Maybe with a swing change, he would lose a tick or two on his exit velocities or strike out a bit more, but he could see some of his groundouts and singles turn into homers. * Steve (Patreon): With the new rules, the action of intentionally walking a batter is a transaction between the manager and the umpire directly, with no player interaction and critically (for this scenario) with no player oversight or ability to overrule the manager. Suppose a manager snaps and decides that he will simply intentionally walk hitters forever...or until he is stopped. What would happen? What would the mood on the field, in the dugout, in the stands and in the front office be as he walks 1, 2, 5, 10, 50..... A few specific questions follow: are there any other in game decisions that the manager has this kind of unilateral control over? Pinch hitting comes to mind, but few others. Even if a manager tries to play someone who can't throw at pitcher, the players on field can presumably "shift" and let someone else pitch. Second, what provisions are there for the front office to fire a manager during a game. The intentional walk rules say that it must be the manager to signal the ump, but I don't know if the rulebook clearly specifies who the manager is or provide a formal process to remove someone as a manager if they start to do things like intentionally walk everybody. * Colin (Patreon): Thanks in no small part to your fantastic episode a few weeks ago featuring Jay Jaffe, I searched for and found a video of him speaking with Chris “Mad Dog” Russo about the HOF (see link below). Russo is a noted saber skeptic, but two aspects of their conversation struck me: Russo’s willingness to listen to Jaffe and Jaffe’s attitude toward Russo. At one moment, for example, Russo asks about Jeff Kent’s candidacy (1:44-3:30). The conversation is civil, but the subtext is clear. Russo scoffs at the mention of on-base percentage as a viable metric. Undeterred, Jaffe explains why Kent isn’t a viable HOF candidate despite his above-average career (side note: Russo's characterization of Kent’s career numbers is off a bit). At the end of the clip, I was left thinking that this is how to comport oneself when speaking with saber skeptics. So assuming either of you speaks to saber skeptics with any regularity, have you noticed a shift in how those conversations go? More than anything, I would enjoy hearing the two of you reflect on the state of conversation between the sabermetrically-inclined and the saber skeptic. * Brian: If Bryce Harper tried to pull a LeBron from the time of "the decision" and join an established star to take a team to the world series, which team/star combo would be the best option. In this scenario I'm using the Astros as that eras Celtics who were team LeBron was trying to counter at the time. I would also count out the Yankees as they already have their own trio. If he joined either of those he would just be Durant. Part B of this is if he decided he wanted to join a basement dweller and turn them around, which is the best spot and which other free agent(s) should he try and recruit with him. I know Manny is probably considered next best but he may not match a certain teams needs. * Hamish: I’m a relatively new baseball fan living in Australia. I haven’t always been a big sports fan, so it’s really new and exciting to me, with the only other sport I enjoy being Australian Rules football (a really stat heavy game, I’d thoroughly recommend looking into it, it’s great). Baseball coverage here is basically zero…it’s easy to see which teams or players are good, but it’s great to listen to you provide context as to which are the best and why through objective stats. I’m still wrapping my head around it all but it’s such a complex game and I love getting into that nitty gritty of it all. The one thing I have most trouble with watching baseball on tv is trying to identify the pitches and why. What’s an easy way you use to identify pitches? Eg what to look for, how to determine where the ball breaks, etc. Curveballs are generally easy, but I have trouble with sliders/changeups/etc. also what exactly is a cutter? I can’t seem to find a strict definition, but it seems to be some vague pitch between a slider and a two seam fastball. * Mike: The Mets twitter posted a video montage of Edwin Diaz saves to get fans hyped. It kinda worked until the mariners announcer said “straight gas!” on one of Diaz’s pitches that drew a whiff. This ruined my immersion because the pitch that was called straight gas was a 90mph slider. Can a pitch be called straight gas if it’s something other than a 97mph+ fastball? Or does it just matter that it was a swinging strike? * Thomas: It's been a wild since you did a "baseball term definition" question, so I'll ask one I've been wondering about for a while: how many innings are in a baseball game? Or, phrased differently, how many outs are in an inning? The question seems inane, I know, but as I discovered when trying to explain baseball to my younger sister many years ago, it's got two contradictory answers. Obviously there are 9 innings in a baseball game. Everybody knows that. But everybody also knows that there are three outs in an inning. But wait. There are 54 outs in a game, 27 per team. So are there 18 innings in a game? Or are there 18 half-innings? But nobody ever says "there are three outs in a half-inning". When the third out is recorded, you say "the inning is over." If the pitcher gives up 10 runs, you say "he had a terrible inning", not "he had a terrible half-inning"? So, what the hell is an inning? Is it three outs, or is it one-ninth of a baseball game? Statblast * JT Realmuto has the 2nd lowest home tOPS+ of all time with 77. Notes * Giancarlo Stanton ranks 280 out of 323 players that hit balls between 8 and 32 degrees. * Harold Baines had a tOPS+ of 110 in high leverage situations, which puts him at 100th. Links https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/effectively-wild-episode-1309-manager-overboard/ Link to Ben’s article about Baines Link to guide to identifying pitches Category:Episodes Category:Email Episodes